How pleasing to sell a sheet of round stickers!Shape: Classic Round Sticker

Make your unique style stick by creating custom stickers for every occasion! From special mailings and scrapbooking to kids’ activities and DIY projects, you’ll find these stickers are great for so many uses. Add your own designs, patterns, text, and pictures!

FROM THE ARCHIVE 13th November 2015The original photograph is a marvellous shot of the Art Nouveau building designed by Paul Hankar for a late 19th century florists in Brussels. I downloaded it a couple of years ago from Wikimedia.…

The original image is enchanting but as soon as I saw it, I wanted to turn it into a painting with a hint of the Pre-Raphaelites about it — yes, one of those rare occasions when I knew what I desired and didn’t wait for one of my ‘accidents’!

I used various textures to give it colour and texture before using a detail of the clock from this image to create the top right-hand detail. I duplicated this detail and warped and shaped it to create an art nouveau pattern for the drape. I also removed her left arm as it looked slightly odd!

I had to think carefully when uploading it to my galleries as a lot of the groups (such as on Redbubble) don’t accept nudity. I had to tick boxes about ‘mature content’. I’m not sure I’ll do another nude any time soon!

This is an adaptation of an original 1890s Criterion Theatre programme in my collection. I confess to being potty about it. The original image is the central strip which I copied, pasted and extended to form a background so that it was a classic card-shaped design. The Art Nouveau shapes and swirls are a treat and enable one to breathe in the theatrical atmosphere of late 19th century London.

The Criterion Theatre in September 2007 [Wikipedia]

This small, Grade II* listed theatre in Piccadilly Circus — it has an official capacity of 588 — opened on the site of an old hunting inn, the White Bear, in 1874. It has played host to some notable performances and productions, not least Charles Wyndham as David Garrick (1888), John Gielgud in Musical Chairs (1932), Terence Rattigan’s French Without Tears (1936-1939), Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1955), which transferred from the Arts Theatre with Peter Woodthorpe, Hugh Burden, Timothy Bateson, and Peter Bull, and Joe Orton’s Loot (1966) with Michael Bates and Kenneth Cranham.

Did you know that one has been able to hear the underground rumble of Piccadilly Line trains since 1906 when the station and line originally opened? It gives productions a certain something! To read more about the Criterion’s history, click here.

I’ve just discovered that John Gielgud’s performance in the above-mentioned Musical Chairs was criticised by Noël Coward. Gielgud wrote to him thus:

To Noël Coward

May 1932, London

Thank you very much for writing as you did. I was very upset at the time, because as you know I had always admired you and your work so very much and also because in a way I have always thought my success in the theatre only began after the Vortex time – this play was my own discovery and I had much to do with the casting and getting it produced, so naturally I was very anxious you of all people should like it. But you are quite right, of course. I act very badly in it sometimes, more especially I think when I know people who matter are in front. And such a small theatre as the Criterion is difficult for me, who am used to the wastes of the Old Vic and His Majesty’s. If I play down, they write and say I’m inaudible and if I act too much, the effect is dire. Now and again one can strike the happy mien and give a good performance. But then, it is no use trying to excuse oneself. I played ever so much better today after reading your letter, and I am really glad when I get honest criticism, though sometimes it’s a bit hard to decide whom to listen to and whom to ignore…[Daily Telegraph – Gielgud’s Letters, introduced and edited by Richard Mangan, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson]

And here are Sir Charles Wyndham (1837-1919) as Garrick and Miss Mary Moore aka Lady Wyndham (1861-1931) as Ada Ingot in David Garrick at the Criterion Theatre in 1886, which is available as a greeting card.

The original photograph is a marvellous shot of the Art Nouveau building designed by Paul Hankar for a late 19th century florists in Brussels. I downloaded it a couple of years ago from Wikimedia. I’d always wanted to do something with it but the resolution was low. I looked for it again recently, having lost the image during the computer saga of this time last year, and downloaded it once more. I resized it with Perfect Photo Suite and while it would not have passed muster on its own, I knew that a duplicate in Overlay mode, would enable me to transform it into a high-resolution Christmas treat.

Everything Christmassy that has been added, such as the angel and baby top left, the Father Christmas bottom right, the holly over the door, the ‘Compliments of the Season’ etching top right and so forth, is from The Graphics Fairy, apart from a painting by Eloise Harriet Stannard (1829–1915) called Christmas Still Life, also from Wikimedia, which is bottom right behind Santa. The eagle-eyed will realise it’s the same still life I used a detail from to create the most recent book cover makeover.

If you are as devoted as I am to vintage and retro art and have been fortunate enough to encounter The Muscleheaded Blog, you will know what very heaven it is to explore. In this post he writes about the “Father of Modern Advertising”, Leonetto Cappiello [1875-1942].

Leonetto Cappiello was the premier poster artist of his generation—

He developed a unique and revolutionary style,

…… and his work is as popular today as it was during the height of the Belle Epoque.

It’s very possible that you are already familiar with Leonetto Cappiello’s beautiful art,

……..and weren’t really aware of it.

His work is so synonymous with the whole advertising poster art revolution of the early 1900s ,